Why handmade Millinery is so expensive!

I'm new to millinery. I don't proclaim to be an expert, and I still have a lot to learn, but I'd like to take you through the process of making a fascinator base.

You can buy fascinators in most shops these days, they are mass produced and unpersonalised, but they are pretty cheap! I've bought fascinators before, and I've never spent more than £24. It's only since I've actually learnt HOW to make a base that I realise why the price of bespoke millinery is justified.

Some people just use ready made bases, I don't do this, as generally you can only buy round ones and you can pretty much make any shape you'd like.

Firstly, we start with the sinamay. Handmade millinery normally has 3 layers of sinamay, as opposed to the mass produced one or two layers (if you're lucky).

This is cut on the bias, 3 layers are pressed together and then you can cut your shape.

Once you've cut the desired shape, you sew wire around the outside of the shape.

This is a pretty time consuming job, as you need to use a special stitch to secure the wire.

Once the wire is secure, you need to create the binding. You can buy this, and I won't lie, when I have the money I will, but I've made my own here.

Then once the binding is sewn round the outside of the wired base, you have a finished base ready to decorate!

Don't be fooled by my basic instructions. This base has taken me around 4 hours to complete. Imagine you're paying yourself £5 an hour (less than the minimum wage) that's £20 without even factoring in materials or the time taken to decorate and finish! You can see why bespoke millinery is so pricey now can't you?

I love doing this, its therapeutic and the possibilities are endless shape wise, but even taking in to account that this is a small base, it's time consuming and expensive.

I'm waiting for the materials to decorate this to arrive, so there'll be another post on putting it together as a whole.

When you consider you can pay up to £100 on the high street for a generic run of the mill fascinator, would you now consider buying bespoke?